Recasting German Federalism

University of Birmingham

• Part 1 Contexts: introduction - the institutional structures of German Federalism; territory and power - some historical determinants of the constitutional structure of the Federal Republic of Germany; centralizing trends in West German Federalism, 1949-1989; German unification and the Federal system - the challenge of reform; administrative reconstruction in the new Lander - the federal dimension. Part 2 Issues: federalism, legalism and political reality - the record of the Federal Constitutional Court; financial equalization in the 1990s - on the road back to Karlsruhe; rediscovering regional economic policy - new opportunities for the Lander in the 1990s; party competition and the federal system - the Lehmbruch hypothesis revisited; the effects of EU-integration on German Federalism; the transfederal relations of the East German Lander - the case of Brandenburg. Part 3 Critical perspectives: German federalism in comparative perspective; German federalism towards 2000 - to be reformed or deformed; efficiency, democracy and post-unification federalism in Germany - a critical analysis; from co-operative federalism to a "Sinatra Doctrine" of Lander?. Appendix: Federalism in the basic law.